Terraform Labs receives approval from U.S. Bankruptcy Court to begin liquidation
According to Reuters, Terraform Labs received approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Thursday to begin liquidation. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon approved Terraform's bankruptcy plan at a hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, calling it a "welcome alternative" to continued litigation for investor losses. Terraform estimates that it will be able to pay $184.5 million to $442.2 million to cryptocurrency investors and other stakeholders as part of bankruptcy liquidation. According to previous news, in June this year, Terraform Labs reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and agreed to pay a $4.47 billion fine to the SEC. The SEC previously accused Terraform and its founder Do Kwon of defrauding cryptocurrency investors, who lost about $40 billion when TerraUSD and Luna tokens collapsed in 2022. Do Kwon faces criminal charges in both the United States and South Korea, but he denies any wrongdoing.
German government shuts down 47 crypto exchanges suspected of criminal activity
According to CoinDesk, the General Prosecutor's Office in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the country's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) have closed 47 crypto exchanges allegedly involved in criminal activities such as money laundering. In a press release on Thursday, the BKA said that these exchanges deliberately failed to fulfill their obligations to conduct certain identity and background checks on customers and failed to meet KYC requirements. These exchanges include Xchange cash, 60cek, Baksman, and some other smaller platforms. One of the exchanges has been active since 2012, while the others were only established last year. Earlier this year, the BKA seized 49,857 bitcoins, then worth $2.1 billion, from the operator of a privacy website. The website was shut down in 2013 for violating the Copyright Act. The BKA began selling these tokens in July this year, and the resulting selling pressure and the almost simultaneous repayment of Mt. Gox funds led to a decline in the global crypto market.
Deus X Capital announces the launch of DeFi business Solstice Labs, which will be launched on the Solana chain in early 2025
According to CoinDesk, Deus X Capital today launched Solstice Labs, a decentralized finance (DeFi) business. The company will release its first protocol on the Solana blockchain in early 2025, providing all investors with enhanced income opportunities, targeting a total value of more than $100 million. Solstice Labs is led by Ben Nadareski, co-founder and CEO of Deus X Capital, and plans to introduce institutional-grade DeFi infrastructure. Deus X Capital has reached $1 billion in assets since its establishment in October last year.
Sky will begin removing WBTC from collateral on October 3
According to CoinDesk, the decentralized financial platform Sky (formerly MakerDAO) has passed a plan to remove Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) from its platform as collateral. This decision has attracted widespread attention because Sky currently has about $200 million in loans collateralized by WBTC, and WBTC, as one of the major cryptocurrencies, has a market value of nearly $10 billion. The move is related to risk concerns caused by WBTC custodian BiTGlobal and its connection with TRON founder Justin Sun. The first phase of the removal will start on October 3 and be completed on November 28.
BingX: The wallet system will undergo temporary maintenance and is expected to be gradually restored within 24 hours
According to the BingX announcement, due to the temporary maintenance of the wallet system, the arrival time of recharge and withdrawal may be delayed. The service is expected to be gradually restored within 24 hours, and users are advised to recharge or withdraw later.
This morning, BingX was suspected to have been attacked by hackers, and abnormal funds of US$13.6 million have flowed out.
Banana Gun: Less than 10 users were affected, the backend was not attacked, the problem may be caused by a frontend vulnerability
Banana Gun said on the X platform that some users experienced unauthorized wallet transfers. After the first incident, the team immediately shut down the bot and began to carefully check the backend. The team has confirmed that the backend has not been attacked. Both the router and the database have been thoroughly checked, and only a very small number of users (less than 10) were affected. In addition, the transfers appear to have been performed manually. The issue may be due to a front-end vulnerability. As the team prioritizes security, the bot will be kept offline during the investigation of the root cause.
Ethereum Pectra upgrade confirmation is divided into two executions
Ethereum developers have confirmed that the hard fork Pectra will be split into two parts to minimize the risk of mistakes or errors, according to CoinDesk. Pectra is expected to be Ethereum's largest hard fork to date. Core developers decided to include a total of 8 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) in the first package, including EIP-7702, which aims to improve the user experience of wallets. The second package will be modified in the coming months, but for now it may include proposals aimed at changing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (called EOF), while introducing a feature called PeerDAS, which improves data availability sampling, ultimately benefiting L2 blockchains.
Worldcoin is piloting Face Auth at select locations
According to The block, Worldcoin will test Face Auth technology for its World App users, and is currently piloting it in selected locations. The new feature "is a private 1:1 facial match that ensures that only those who have verified their World ID on the orb can" access the World App. The measure was introduced to improve the security of users who use the app for tools such as "online shopping, financial transactions, and secure login to applications."
Genesis creditors hit by $243 million cryptocurrency scam, ZachXBT investigation leads to arrests of multiple suspects
According to ZachXBT, Greavys (Malone Lam), Wiz (Veer Chetal) and Box (Jeandiel Serrano) allegedly stole $243 million from a Genesis creditor on August 19, 2024 through a complex social engineering attack. The modus operandi included pretending to be Google and Gemini customer service to obtain the victim's personal account information through fraudulent means. The 4,064 stolen bitcoins were quickly distributed to multiple addresses and converted between Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Monero on more than 15 exchanges. ZachXBT's investigation helped freeze millions of dollars and led to multiple arrests.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Justice website announced that 20-year-old Singaporean citizen Malone Lam (nickname "Anne Hathaway") and 21-year-old Jeandiel Serrano (nickname "VersaceGod") were indicted for suspected involvement in cryptocurrency theft and money laundering conspiracy. The two are suspected of using fraudulent means to access victims' cryptocurrency accounts and transfer funds to their control since August 2024, and then use cryptocurrency mixers and virtual private networks (VPNs) to conceal their identities and use the funds for luxury consumption. The two were accused of stealing more than 4,100 bitcoins (worth more than $230 million at the time). The case was jointly investigated by the FBI, IRS and other agencies.
Bloomberg: OpenAI's latest round of financing is about to be completed, and the final list of investors will be determined on Friday
According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, OpenAI's latest round of financing is about to be completed, and the final list of investors will be determined this Friday. People familiar with the matter said that OpenAI's current round of $6.5 billion financing has been oversubscribed, and the market's oversubscription amount is as high as billions of dollars, which means that some potential investors will not be able to participate in this round of financing. Several strategic investors, including Microsoft, OpenAI's largest investor, and new investors Nvidia and Apple, may get the opportunity to participate. The deal will value OpenAI at $150 billion. People familiar with the matter also revealed that OpenAI's existing investor Sequoia Capital will not participate in this round of financing. Sequoia Capital recently invested in OpenAI's competitor Safe Superintelligence Inc., which was founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who left OpenAI earlier this year. In addition, existing investor Thrive Capital will lead this round of financing and will invest $1.25 billion.
